I’ve already written my own revew of the Chichester Festival Theatre’s production of The Music Man, buit it’s always good to find out that I’m in agreement with the professional critics! In fact, the critics were so positive (and so much more in agreement than normal!), that I thought it was worth writing a round-up of their reviews.

I went to the National Theatre on Tuesday night to see Michael Frayn’s new play, Afterlife, at what was press night.

I generally prefer not to stray too far out of my writing comfort zone and instead, I concentrated on writing about musical theatre in this blog (as you’ll see if you look at my planned trips for this year, you’ll notice a very clear bias towards musicals.

Given that, I don’t plan to write a full review of Afterlife – there have been plenty of other people offering their thoughts on the play, so instead, I’ve decided to pick up what they have said, and whether I agree at all with them.

There have been no shortage of articles about Trevor Nunn‘s latest project, a new musical adapatation ofGone with the Wind. The signs haven’t been great in recent weeks though, with one preview being cancelled to give more time to rework the show. Cuts have continued to be made over the last week, but the show still clocks in at a weighty 3 hours 40 minutes.

This production has almost certainly required a large budget, so the producers will have been hoping for a positive reaction from the critics. Unfortunately, judging by the reviews in the major newspapers this morning, things haven’t quite gone according to plan.

Last night marked the reopening of the newly-refurbished Kings Head Theatre in Islington with the first show in its new season, which also marks its new beginning as a fully-fledged producing house. Black and White Ball is billed as “the new Cole Porter musical”, but is in fact a ‘collaboration’ between Cole Porter and Warner Brown, alebit one where the latter has written a new book that incorporates the music of the no-longer-alive Cole Porter.

I don’t think I have ever seen a set of reviews so uniformly negative in all my life. As a result, I have to admit that I’m somewhat intrigued by any show that gets such a hammering from so many reviewers.

In fact, on opening the Guardian yesterday, I saw something I’ve never seen before – a zero-star review!

God of Carnage opened last night at the Gielgud Theare. I had a ticket to see the show during previews, but I found myself in Brussels for the day and unfortunately had to give up my seat. I plan to rebook soon to form my own judgement, but in the meantime, I couldn’t help looking at today’s reviews.

The cast and creative team is incredibly strong, so expectations were understandably high. The play is written by Yasmin Reza, who is most famous for Art, which was a huge success in London. As with Art, God of Carnage is translated by the phenomenal Christopher Hampton, a translater and adaptor whose previous work has included Les Liaisons Dangereuses and Embers.

But as we all know, having big names does not guarantee positive reviews… thankfully for the producers of God of Carnage, the reviews appear to have been very positive. In fact, of the ‘quality’ newspapers, only the Independent are critical. Michael Billington, Charles Spencer and Benedict Nightingale are all impressed as you’ll see if you read on:

I haven’t seen Jersey Boys yet, so I was intrigued to see what the critics said after this week’s opening night. As ever, the reviews are mixed – The Telegraph, The Times and Daily Mail were all very positive, The Independent underwhelmed, and The Guardian disappointed.

I look forward to make up my own mind in due course, but in the meantime, here’s a round-up of the reviews I’ve read: